“Working Together to Protect Wisconsin’s Water Resources”

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Reception at 6 p.m., program at 7 p.m.

Dreyfus University Center Theatre

University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point

Stevens Point, Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has a duty to protect and preserve the State’s waters — but DNR’s ability to fulfill that duty has been limited by recent staff and budget cuts.

Citizen groups across the state have responded to this problem by stepping up their efforts to protect waters that are threatened by overuse, contamination and mismanagement.

Join Clean Wisconsin for a panel discussion about the ways that citizen-action organizations are using the legal system to protect our water resources —from groundwater overuse and contamination to rare wetland destruction—and what you can do to be a part of the citizen-led effort to protect public health and defend our natural heritage.

Panelists

Susan Hedman

As Of Counsel to Clean Wisconsin, Susan advises and supports the organization’s legal and policy work to protect environmental and human health. Susan has a passion for protecting the environment in her home state and has over thirty years of professional experience, which includes serving as US EPA Region V Administrator and Great Lakes National Program Manager, as Environmental Counsel for the Illinois Attorney General, and as an attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy of the Midwest. Susan represented Clean Wisconsin, then known as Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, in her first case after law school—a case that stopped the discharge of millions of gallons of raw sewage from entering Lake Superior and led the City of Ashland to obtain federal funding to build an upgraded wastewater facility on an inland site.

George Kraft

George Kraft is a Professor of Water Resources and Director of the Center for Watershed Science and Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Dr. Kraft’s outreach involvement includes how lakes and streams have been dried by groundwater pumping, particularly in the Wisconsin central sands, modernizing Wisconsin’s groundwater pumping management policy and laws, nitrate and pesticide pollution of groundwater, and assisting stewardship groups organize and manage their water resources. Dr. Kraft’s research interests revolve about questions of water resource sustainability, particularly about profitable agriculture and water impacts.

Christa Westerberg

Christa Westerberg is a Partner with Pines Bach’s Litigation Practice Group in Madison. Christa has been practicing law since 2002 and joined the firm in 2016. Christa concentrates her practice in environmental and land use law, as well as open government law. She has represented individuals, non-profit groups, businesses, municipalities, and others in their efforts to protect environmental resources. She has obtained judgments and settlements for her clients in venues ranging from administrative agencies to federal court.

Evan Feinauer

Evan Feinauer is Staff Attorney for Clean Wisconsin. Before joining Clean Wisconsin, Evan worked as a Litigation Fellow with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). At NRDC, Evan helped litigate a Safe Drinking Water Act citizen suit responding to the Flint water crisis in federal district court in Detroit, Michigan. Evan holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a M.S. in Ethics and Public Policy from Suffolk University, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Scott Laeser

Scott Laeser is Water Program Director at Clean Wisconsin, primarily focused on water quality issues pertaining to agriculture. He works to connect farmers and agricultural groups with municipalities and non-profit organizations to reduce agricultural runoff and improve water quality.

Scott has worked on water quality issues for over ten years, most recently with the Driftless Area Land Conservancy in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, where he helped explore ways to facilitate and encourage water quality improvements in the Pecatonica Basin.

Scott also co-owns and co-manages Plowshares & Prairie Farm in Argyle, Wisconsin which grows an array of vegetables while minimizing runoff and nutrient leaching from fields through use of cover crops, grass waterways, and restored wetlands and prairies.